


Don't Get Cut On My Edges

by Thelittlescrimshaw



Series: Satan and Me Fics [1]
Category: Satan and Me (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 09:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10303892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thelittlescrimshaw/pseuds/Thelittlescrimshaw
Summary: She told him she loved him, and he's gone and got her dead. Natan.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr, but cleaned up a lot for here. 
> 
> Title taken from "Young God" by Halsey.

He’s failed her.

She told him she loved him – _loved him, how long has it been since someone loved him –_ and now she’s dead, all because of him. Dead and in Hell, and there’s nothing he can do to bring her back. 

“I’m sorry, kid,” he says, over and over. She deserves better than this, better than him, god, she’s just a _girl…_

He thinks he's going to die from sheer despair. 

Then Death shows up, and Lucifer strikes a bargain.

* * *

When she wakes, she doesn't remember him.

His felt his heart break when she called him "monster."

_(That's the one thing about her, isn't it? I was never a monster to her...)_

* * *

 When she remembers - after far too long, after far too many threats and bargains -he picks her up and gathers her into his arms and holds her close, too distraught for words.

 _“_ Don’t leave me again,” he says, and it’ stupid and pathetic and needy but he means it, more than he’s ever meant anything. He's on the verge of tears, the third time in as many days, but he doesn't care. 

“Dude, are you _crying?”_ And he can’t help it – he laughs, because that’s such a Natalie thing to do, just kill the moment with something inane and embarrassing.

So he shoves her away and tells her to watch it, that he’s not afraid to kill her _again,_ and things are back to normal.

* * *

Except they’re not.

He can’t escape it, the acute knowledge that she died and it almost destroyed him. He has things to do, shouldn’t be with her now that he’s not contracted, but he can’t bring himself to leave. Not yet. Not after that. And things are different in the wake of it all: she’s more distant, shies away from him, is slow to meet his eyes.

For the first time since they were contracted, she’s afraid of him.

* * *

It’s a stupid decision, an impulsive one, but he kisses her.

It’s nothing grand, nothing spectacular. He’s disguised as “Stan” and they’re walking through the mall for something or another; it’s Christmas, and there’s mistletoe hanging from a store’s doorway.

She grins up at him. “Ha! You know what that means…” she elbows him, wiggles her eyebrows, (and in all probability, it just trying to get under his skin) but he –

He leans down and kisses her, and he realizes how long he’s wanted to do that for –

And he realizes how well and truly fucked he is.

Nat goes tense, turns about six shades of red. “Um,” she squeaks, and bolts off, saying something about needing the restroom.

“Crucified Christ,” he grits. Some passerby looks at him sympathetically. “Maybe next time, man," he says, clapping Lucifer on the shoulder. 

“Yeah,” he says absently. _Maybe._

* * *

They’re walking home. Nat seemed determined to act as if Lucifer had never kissed her, and he wasn’t going to argue that tactic. But then she goes oddly quiet, slows down, and says, “Um. Hey. About that…”

“Forget it,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have egged you one.”

“No, no I –“ Natalie bit her lip, looked at her toes. “I didn’t tell you what happened in hell.”

“You didn’t want to talk about it,” he said, forcing his tone to be gentle. “I didn’t want to…” he trails off, “ _make it worse,”_ left unsaid but hanging heavy between them.

She took a breath, then said, “You – well, something that looked like you, Hell, I guess – um, kissed me. When I got there. And it was…it scared me, Lucifer. I knew it wasn’t you, but it _was._ And it…” she hugged herself, didn’t meet his eyes.

 _I’m sorry,_ is the most useless phrase in the English language, but what else can he say?

“I shouldn’t have made that joke. I didn’t think you’d…” she goes on, and he can’t believe what he’s done to her.

And this girl – she’s called him her guardian angel, said she loved him, trusted him to get her back from the dead – and he’s gone and made her uncomfortable.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, kid.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay.”

He looks at her, waits until she meets his eyes. “Is it?” he asks softly.

She doesn’t give him an answer.

* * *

He keeps his distance after that.

He’s afraid to leave her alone for too long (whether he’s afraid for himself or for her, now that’s another question entirely) so he doesn’t. But it doesn’t seem to matter if he’s around or not: trouble of the divine sort seems to find her wherever she goes.

It’s another incident, another close encounter with death, another altercation with his brother. Someone really ought to tell Natalie about Michael’s feelings for her, his involvement in her childhood bereavement, but his brother was too chickenshit and Lucifer isn’t the type to intercede on behalf of other people.

They're in a coffee shop. Michael is begging Nat to reconsider, tell her that even though she’s used her contract he can help, offering eternal happiness and all of heaven’s bullshit. Lucifer is doing his best to not get bothered by his brother.

He's failing. 

“Look,” Nat was saying, “I don’t appreciate being manipulated, Michael.” Michael opens his mouth to argue, but catches Lucifer’s glare and shuts his mouth. Natalie stalks away to order some sugar coffee drink – he idly hopes she orders him one, too – and Michael sidles up to him.

 “Growing soft, eh, Luce?”

“Shut your mouth.”

“I’m just saying – if you care for her, you’ll tell her to listen to me.”

“I didn’t see you putting anything on the line when she _died,_ Michael.” Lucifer tenses, grits his teeth, and refuses to look at Michael. He watches Natalie like a hawk - a habit he's fallen into, and for good reason.

“And I don’t see you acting like she matters to you either, Lucifer,” he says snidely, then disappears before Lucifer can whirl around and punch him.

Really, nobody knows how to duel anymore.

“Michael left?” Natalie says as she comes toward him, two iced mocha lattes in hand. She hands one to Lucifer, and he has to resist the urge to say, _I love you._ Instead he says, “Good riddance.”

* * *

He holds her when she wakes up from a Hell-caused nightmare, screaming and thrashing.

It’s the least he can do. He’s the reason she has them.

“I don’t want to go back there,” she whispers one night. It’s a topic they’d been ignoring – that though she was alive now, one day she’d have to go _back._ They hadn’t found a way around it, not one that wouldn’t require her dying immediately and whisked away by Michael.

“I know,” he says. She’s weeping into his chest and he’s running a hand through her hair. It’s been long, too long, since anybody had come to him for comfort. He feels like he’s miming it more than anything as he strokes her hair and murmurs into her ear, “We’ll find a way, kid. I haven’t stopped looking. I won’t stop. I promise.”

She falls asleep in his arms that night, and he doesn’t move until morning. She's soft and warm and he hasn't felt that in a long, long while.

* * *

He and Michael are dueling – it’s not the End of Days, it’s not even close, but Satan’s had it up to _here_ with his brother. Michael can eat shit – Satan made the mistake of holding back before, and Michael had ripped two of his wings off.

Death and Pestilence had the other four. 

Now he has nothing to lose.

He thinks of Natalie. _No._

Now he has  _everything_ to lose.

But Michael is noble; Michael wouldn’t dare use his affection for Natalie against him. So Lucifer – God’s former pride and joy, the light-bringer, the Morningstar – raises hell. Flames dance around them, licking up his legs, bringing him power as they grow. 

“You love her,” Michael hisses, jumping out of the hellfire's reach. “But you’re spelling out her _destruction!”_

Lucifer silences him with a swift uppercut, the grabs him by his shoulders and jams Michael's chest against his knee. Michael is stunned from the impact. “You know _nothing,”_  Lucifer snarls, yanking Michael’s wings at the base. They don’t rip, don’t tear, not yet, but with a little more force…

_See how you like it, having your celestial essence castrated..._

“What do you think she’ll think of you, if you harm me?” Michael manages, blood trickling out of his mouth. “Do you think she’ll forgive you? _Coward._ ”

And that makes Lucifer pause, bridles his rage enough that Michael manages to escape.

He roars at the sky, grounded and unable to chase after Michael. The flames shoot up higher than ever, then slowly grow smaller and eventually disappear. 

Nobody knows how to fucking duel anymore.

* * *

It’s an almost-asleep confession: “I saw your soul, you know.”

He’s laying facing her, far on the other side of the bed. He’s taken to staying there until Natalie falls asleep; she says it helps with the nightmares, and he has no objection. The bed is much softer than her stupid chair anyway.

“…yeah?” he tries not to react.

“It was beautiful,” she mumbled, “It’s a shame nobody else can see...”

His heart hammers in his chest. She saw his soul.

_She saw his soul._

Nobody has seen it since- since before the Fall. _Shit._

She reaches out a hand to his and gives it a squeeze. He doesn't say anything - what could he say? - and Natalie falls asleep shortly thereafter.

If he hadn’t been frozen to the spot, he would have kissed her.

* * *

_I love you, Lucifer._

Knowing Nat, it was probably platonic. Knowing her, she loved every living creature, because she was made of some sort of incorruptible pure pureness. Crucified Christ, she didn't even curse. She was God's perfect little prophecy child. 

Knowing him, he was reading too far into it.

But still…

The words are there, on the tip of his tongue: _you know, kid, I love you too –_ but he can’t make them form. He wants her to know, wants her to – to be okay, to be happy, because when she’s happy he’s happy, like at the coast…

His thoughts are interrupted when she says, “Whatchya thinking about?”

“What?”

She pokes him on the nose. “Your horns go yellow when you’re happy. So – whatchya thinking about?” She grins at him, and he finds himself saying, “The coast.”

She tilts her head. “Huh, really?”

He averts his eyes. “It was – nice.” _You called me your guardian angel the first time and told me you loved me the second time, but then you died but you’re here, you’re_ here…

She smiles. “Yeah. It was.”

She leans against him, resting her head on his shoulder. They’re on a bench in the park, and he’s in an oddly good mood – Michael is lying low and Hell is quiet and she’s happy, so he’s happy. He puts his arm behind her and hugs her to him, keeps his eyes resolutely fixed on the horizon.

He’s not a coward.

Except he is.

“You know, kid,” he says, “I love you, too.”

He doesn’t look at her – he can’t look at her _(coward, coward, coward)_ – but he can practically feel her shift, beam up at him, and she says –

“I knew you were a total marshmallow.” 

She cuddles to his side more, and he rolls his eyes and says “Watch it, girl –“ but…

Things are okay. Things are going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think :3


End file.
